Tag: sonnet
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Box Spring
Two decades old, twice its expected life, a resident of seven apartments – the first bed I ever purchased myself soon after graduating college – it is no more a vessel that supports, coils worn out under strain of body weight alternating between tranquil slumber and the restless sprawl of insomnia. Creaks follow trembles when…
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Goya’s Eagle Hunter
The ink has faded to burnt sienna, depicting a rust-colored precipice. A man in a harness lowers himself to where a nest is ensconced in a crag. His torso horizontal, he reaches inside the roost, abducting eggs and chicks. From the upper left, a full-fledged eagle flies toward the hunter, oblivious to the impending conundrum…
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Down With the Bad
More than a month since a back injury left her housebound, she’s better enough now to walk through the door and down the steps into the driveway where her car is parked. Cautiously lingering at the threshold, she tries to remember the mnemonic her physical therapist suggested during an appointment the other day. “Up with…
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Lifetime Brakes
When grandpa and I took his car for a spin, he often boasted to me about the good deal he got by paying the shop for a lifetime guarantee on his brakes. But one day we came flying down Skyline Drive off the Blue Ridge Mountains and I felt the brake pedal depress under my…
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Dollars per Gallon
Zero-to-sixty became expensive. The price per g of acceleration quickly went up to luxury status after Putin’s tanks invaded Ukraine. Drivers in their cars on the road think twice about how hard they press that gas pedal. Opening up the throttle will cost you – are the moments trimmed off a trip worth it? Distilled…
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Starting Out
In the parking lot of a grocery store on a chilly evening in November, the cough and wheeze of her car’s ignition reminds me how we, too, are starting out. The synergy between fire and motion,centuries old by now, proven to work -yet there still remains a suspenseful gaspat the outset of this reaction: will…
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Summer Retreat
At Mount Madonna, she meditated twice a day or more for an hour each time. She practiced yoga morning, noon, and night – learned how to teach others the positions. Her diet there was vegetarian: warm kitchari from an earthenware bowl, curried leafy greens with golden raisins. Alcohol and caffeine were forbidden. After a month…
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Dusk in San Jose, CA
Dusk from a Balcony in San Jose (August, 2015) A man on his terrace ponders the breeze. This evening’s forecast predicts cool weather. A gentle sweep of cirrus clouds hovers in the darkening, cobalt atmosphere. Sunshine has crept down the bent horizon. Jet planes arc along the celestial dome. Stars emerge, piercing through the firmament…
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Like Vampires
Vampires On a Hot Day On hot afternoons, we live like vampires. Each window closed, Venetian blinds pulled shut against the sun and its penchant for heat. Our house this way entombed, preserving cool. Last night’s cross-ventilation of crisp air settles around us, redolent of stars’ distant brilliance in a clear sky, welcome insulation from…
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Ghost Story
Grandma Tells Me a Ghost Story “Seven years after he died, I saw your dad standing in the doorway of my bedroom. He had on a shirt you all gave him: navy blue with a thin, burgundy stripe. His beard was trimmed short and he wasn’t wearing his glasses – you don’t need them in…
From the Firefly Galaxy 